Sunday, August 25, 2013

Have the Trolls of Amazon and Goodreads Gone Too Far?

Troll Bait

It was said by fellow writer Rick Carufel that the trolls had committed internet crimes of stalking and bullying. They'd tried to put authors in a negative light using the forums, chat rooms, and social media. Lets keep in mind that teenagers have killed themselves over bullying of this nature. Not Rick, that guy is as tough as an old rusty nail. This isn't just happening to Rick. This is happening to indie writers everywhere. There may or may not have been crimes committed when Rick first mentioned it, but now there most certainly has been. He's not a modern day Nostradamus. Rick did predict exactly what would eventually happen.

The Crimes

First we have to look at the irony of the situation. The STGRB website is routinely criticized by the trolls for stalking beyond the forums, chat rooms, and blogs. I've even heard them say that they've had job opportunities lost because of STGRB. I'd be willing to bet that over half of them live in their mother's basement. I'd bet the other half are old used up drunken housewives that hate their life.

Rick knew he had done time for trafficking cocaine, and he'd told me that one day the trolls would find out and try to persecute him for it on the forums, chat rooms, and blogs. He was right. The trolls are doing exactly what they criticize STGRB for. Only I've never put my eyes on a bit of proof that the anti-bullying website did any of that. I do have proof that the trolls did it to Rick Carufel.

These trolls don't like Rick or his books, although they've never read them. He's affiliated with a website that they don't like. So it only seems right to post his home address and personal information online. The local newspaper in Rick Carufel's hometown misprinted information due to poor fact checking. They refused to do a retraction and legal action is being taken. These trolls are basing their facts on misinformation. Then they run for the high road as quickly as possible.

These are authors that supposedly responded to negative reviews of their book. I know that #12 on the list has never done that, and I strongly suspect that the others on this list didn't either. Rick wrote a couple of non fiction and highly controversial essays. The trolls are picking people off that leave a positive review of his essays. They have referred to me as a Sandy Hook denier. After the blog post I wrote regarding that issue it never has came up again. I made it pretty obvious that there was no validity to the claim. That left them with no choice but to shut their mouth.

Angela has placed me on her list. This list is allegedly made up of badly behaving authors. I know at least half of the people on the list from groups like, Facebook, Linkedin, and Goodreads. These are not badly behaving authors and neither am I. These are people who were attacked by the trolls on Amazon and Goodreads. I never responded to a single review. In fact they started attacking me after I gave a review, and when they found out I was a writer they started shelving and rating my books with one stars. They never read the books they were reviewing, and had no problem admitting that they'd never read them.

So according to Amazon it's not against the rules to post someone's address in the public forum. Nobody really needed to know that Rick Carufel had sold cocaine. Stephen King was a cocaine addict and admits that several of his books were written under the influence. He says he doesn't even remember writing Cujo. So while these trolls are riding the high road they actually look worse than Mr. Carufel. Because people who have a grip on how the world works realize a person overcomes and changes throughout life. The problem is that the trolls had the facts wrong as usual, and thought the charge was more recent than it was.They came off like fools for assuming this man hasn't turned his life around.

Maybe they knew he'd changed. Perhaps they knew he wanted change in a flawed system that allows the trolls to run things. I've seen him in the forum ripping them into pieces. They know he's bold enough to enter their domain, and it's hidden in the depths of the romance section. They've seen him engage in verbal combat with 25 to 50 trolls in the forum. I know for a fact that he's on a crusade for change. I believe he'll cause them to make changes in their ridiculous terms of service.

1 comment:

Thanks John for the support. The trolls who serially attack indie writers have to go and if the website they wallow in won't remove them well then the sites will have to go. The world would be a better place without badreads or the Amazon forums.

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I saw this movie before I read the book, but it was the best adaption of a Stephen King story. This is right there with The Shining and Christine as my all time favorite Stephen King novels. It's just ahead of Pet Semetary for best King adaption. Many of Stephen King's adaptions were not good. In my humble opinion it's about 50-50 good and bad. Stephen King didn't like Kubric's version of The Shining, but I did. It wasn't better than the novel, but it was damn good and scary. This is a must read for fans of any genre.

This wasn't the best Stephen King book I've ever read. In fact it might be the worst, which is saying something because it wasn't very bad. It's just not one I'd highly recommend. I don't feel like I wasted my time, although there were better King books I could have read.

The story line was good, the prose was good, and it had everything a good SK book should have, but it fell short of some of the other awesome books of his that I've read. The story did drag on in places and probably could've been a short story or novella.

I read Christine at 10 years old, and could remember loving it. I had to read it again as an adult, so I read it again in 2002. I have the book in my collection just in the event that I might read it a 3rd time one day. That coming from the guy who doesn't want to read the same book twice.

I had to rate this 5-stars, because this was the best example of storytelling you can find. He twists reality with fiction so well in this story. It made the story seem very real. I never once found myself rooting against the turned antagonist Arnie, or Christine.

Christine is under appreciated, and maybe that's because the movie was a huge success. The movie was great, but it missed something the novel had from a realistic stand point. Reading this novel inspired me to write myself. This book is in my top-3 Stephen King stories.

This was one of the strangest books I've ever had the chance to read. Like a fly in a spiderweb the story has a consuming quality about it. It was somewhat like a puzzle, and King did a great job of pulling it all together. I read Desperation before reading this one, so I thought it was awesome how he used the same characters in in different roles in both books. I give this story 5-stars, because it's tight and right.

This book was what I call good horror. He stayed very close to the Sylvia Likens case. Some readers of the book called it torture porn. Nothing could be further from the truth. The book is very well written, it's horror at its best, and it gets five stars from me. I recommend this book to anyone who likes realistic horror.

From the reviews I read I expected it to be worse. In no way was this torture porn, but it was pretty extreme violence, however still not as over the top as I expected it to be. I liked the story a lot, and immediately began reading The Girl Next Door upon finishing Off Season. Jack has picked up another fan.

This was an awesome look into how a legend goes about the craft. I've applied some of the advice into my own work. Especially the part about the second draft and revising process. If you want to write or are a fan of Stephen King, then don't wait another minute to read this book.